By Paul Carrier
Here’s an intriguing framework for a novel. Choose a setting (in this case, Newport, Rhode Island) and divide the plot into five narratives that share the same locale during different time periods, ranging from the late 17th century through the American Revolution, the Civil War, the Gilded Age and the early 21st century.
That’s what Gregory Blake Smith has done in The Maze at Windermere. The result is a captivating, beautifully written examination of interconnection, the notion that we all share an amorphous something with those who have preceded us and, perhaps in a still more tenuous way, with those who will follow in our wake.
“Have you not had that sensation?” Alice Taylor, a young Connecticut woman visiting Newport in 1863, asks her newfound friend Henry James, the soon-to-be author, as they stroll through a cemetery. ”That your life has already been lived? That everyone’s life has already been lived?”
There is much double-dealing and vulnerability in Smith’s Newport. Some characters harbor suspect motives for their actions while others bravely struggle to find their place in a world where much is not as it seems. The maze of the title refers not only to a network of shrubbery-bordered passages at Windermere, the seaside mansion that eventually falls into the hands of 21st-century character Alice du Pont, but also to the labyrinths that bedevil human interactions.
In 1692, Prudence Selwyn, an orphaned 15-year-old Quaker girl with no means of support, finds herself living with her younger sister and Ashes, a female slave. She’s torn when a local black man, who is free and runs a successful woodworking business, proposes a novel solution to her problem.
In 1778, Major Ballard, an arrogant and unstable army officer stationed in Newport with the city’s British occupiers, plots how to seduce the beautiful 16-year-old Judith Da Silva, whom Ballard refers to in his diary not by her name but as “the Jewess.”
In 1863, James and Taylor become close friends, but does Taylor misinterpret James’ intentions? The young man who will eventually become a literary sensation is primarily interested in observing people as inspiration for his writing, and is confused by the fact that he is not sexually attracted to women.
Thirty-three years later, in 1896, witty bon vivant Franklin Drexel, a closeted gay man, spends his time socializing with le beau monde. Lacking enough money to live comfortably on his own, Drexel concocts a scheme to marry the widowed Ellen Newcombe, a New York socialite who summers at her Newport estate: Windermere.
Finally, in 2011, fading tennis pro Sandy Alison is simultaneously involved with two local women at Windermere while a third, du Pont, seems to be falling in love with him. Alison is a shallow but decent enough fellow; the mordant, humorous du Pont, perhaps the most memorable character in a cast full of them, is an unmarried heiress who has cerebral palsy and a bipolar disorder.
Smith’s captivating tale unfolds in alternating chapters, each of which follows the lives of a set of characters from one of the five time periods. The novel weaves these story lines together in subtle, sometimes striking, ways. In 2011, for example, Du Pont uses a phrase from James’ novella Daisy Miller to make a point. Later, when Smith revisits 1863, we learn who inspired James to include such language in his novella.
The Maze at Windermere shifts its point of view in different eras, so that Welwyn, the Quaker; Ballard, the British officer; and James, the budding author; narrate the progress of their own lives with an impressively credible recreation of period language and perspectives, while the strands set in 1896 and 2011 are told in the third person. Eventually, Smith abandons the chapter distinctions that separate each time period.
If this sounds too unconventional to be enjoyable, that is far from the case. Hopping from one century to the next, with the constant entrance and exit of each period’s characters, is a bit confusing at first, but only briefly. The Maze at Windermere is so stunningly evocative it’s hard to put down. It may be a cliché, but the novel really is such a remarkable accomplishment it will sadden you when it draws to a close.
The reader’s mission, Smith writes in an essay posted by bookpage.com, “is to note the ways in which the different stories parallel or mirror or invert one another, and in doing so, to marvel at the infinite capacities—and the duplicities—of the human heart.” A maze, indeed.
That’s what Gregory Blake Smith has done in The Maze at Windermere. The result is a captivating, beautifully written examination of interconnection, the notion that we all share an amorphous something with those who have preceded us and, perhaps in a still more tenuous way, with those who will follow in our wake.
“Have you not had that sensation?” Alice Taylor, a young Connecticut woman visiting Newport in 1863, asks her newfound friend Henry James, the soon-to-be author, as they stroll through a cemetery. ”That your life has already been lived? That everyone’s life has already been lived?”
There is much double-dealing and vulnerability in Smith’s Newport. Some characters harbor suspect motives for their actions while others bravely struggle to find their place in a world where much is not as it seems. The maze of the title refers not only to a network of shrubbery-bordered passages at Windermere, the seaside mansion that eventually falls into the hands of 21st-century character Alice du Pont, but also to the labyrinths that bedevil human interactions.
In 1692, Prudence Selwyn, an orphaned 15-year-old Quaker girl with no means of support, finds herself living with her younger sister and Ashes, a female slave. She’s torn when a local black man, who is free and runs a successful woodworking business, proposes a novel solution to her problem.
In 1778, Major Ballard, an arrogant and unstable army officer stationed in Newport with the city’s British occupiers, plots how to seduce the beautiful 16-year-old Judith Da Silva, whom Ballard refers to in his diary not by her name but as “the Jewess.”
In 1863, James and Taylor become close friends, but does Taylor misinterpret James’ intentions? The young man who will eventually become a literary sensation is primarily interested in observing people as inspiration for his writing, and is confused by the fact that he is not sexually attracted to women.
Thirty-three years later, in 1896, witty bon vivant Franklin Drexel, a closeted gay man, spends his time socializing with le beau monde. Lacking enough money to live comfortably on his own, Drexel concocts a scheme to marry the widowed Ellen Newcombe, a New York socialite who summers at her Newport estate: Windermere.
Finally, in 2011, fading tennis pro Sandy Alison is simultaneously involved with two local women at Windermere while a third, du Pont, seems to be falling in love with him. Alison is a shallow but decent enough fellow; the mordant, humorous du Pont, perhaps the most memorable character in a cast full of them, is an unmarried heiress who has cerebral palsy and a bipolar disorder.
Smith’s captivating tale unfolds in alternating chapters, each of which follows the lives of a set of characters from one of the five time periods. The novel weaves these story lines together in subtle, sometimes striking, ways. In 2011, for example, Du Pont uses a phrase from James’ novella Daisy Miller to make a point. Later, when Smith revisits 1863, we learn who inspired James to include such language in his novella.
The Maze at Windermere shifts its point of view in different eras, so that Welwyn, the Quaker; Ballard, the British officer; and James, the budding author; narrate the progress of their own lives with an impressively credible recreation of period language and perspectives, while the strands set in 1896 and 2011 are told in the third person. Eventually, Smith abandons the chapter distinctions that separate each time period.
If this sounds too unconventional to be enjoyable, that is far from the case. Hopping from one century to the next, with the constant entrance and exit of each period’s characters, is a bit confusing at first, but only briefly. The Maze at Windermere is so stunningly evocative it’s hard to put down. It may be a cliché, but the novel really is such a remarkable accomplishment it will sadden you when it draws to a close.
The reader’s mission, Smith writes in an essay posted by bookpage.com, “is to note the ways in which the different stories parallel or mirror or invert one another, and in doing so, to marvel at the infinite capacities—and the duplicities—of the human heart.” A maze, indeed.
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